July 7, 2014

From employment to the environment to transportation, Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin weigh in on myriad topics in a recent, intimate interview.

Larry Page

The pair recently sat down for a lengthy talk with Vinod Khosla during a private event with venture capital firm Khosla Ventures.

The recorded interview, which was recently released, touches on everything from the early beginnings of Google to the company’s self-driving cars. A transcript of the chat is available but some of the highlights include Page’s view of where the economy is heading and how it may impact job opportunities.

“Everyone I’ve asked — I’ve asked a lot of people about this. Maybe not you guys. But most people, if I ask them, ‘Would you like an extra week of vacation?’ They raise their hands, 100-percent of the people. ‘Two weeks vacation, or a four-day work week?’ Everyone will raise their hand,” said Page.

“Most people like working, but they’d also like to have more time with their family or to pursue their own interests. So that would be one way to deal with the problem, is if you had a coordinated way to just reduce the workweek. And then, if you add slightly less employment, you can adjust and people will still have jobs.”

The pair also discuss Google X with admission the project goes above and beyond the search engine parameters with everything from contact lenses that read a wearers’ glucose levels to balloons.

Yes, balloons.

“We have Internet via high altitude balloons,” Brin said during one part of the interview where he explained where he sees Google X focusing.

“I created a set of rules for our projects that, by design, keep us farther away from Google. For example, we focus on atoms not bits. What we do involves a lot of software, but it always has a key non-software component, like obviously, the cars, even though they have a lot of software,” he said.